I played him in the U-180 section at the 2012 Surrey Congress, and to be frank, wiped him off the board - a Fantasy Caro-Kann that was over in a mere 16 moves. But now, of course, I had the self-imposed 'handicap' of Queenside openings to deal with. Winter is an experienced opponent and no fool - would I be able to win in quiet fashion? I was able to get some imbalance in a relatively dry Catalan, and whilst my technique was hardly vintage, and the position not exactly brilliant, that imbalance was enough to - eventually - give me a full point:
Firstly as an aside, it's a tragedy black didn't decide to take on doubled c-pawns for activity instead and have those picked up in a grim, seemingly endless struggle - "the old man and the c-pawns" is the sort of pun you dream about...
Anyway, perhaps this is a useful place to say something more on my opening philosophy; even if I'd played correctly on move 12 I wouldn't have got much if anything. In my view, the decision over whether to play 1. e4 or 1. d4/Nf3/c4 is a balance of risk and reward. If you go for the latter, then with sensible play it is actually quite hard to avoid getting a small advantage - have you ever got the impression that none of your QP defences are quite satisfactory? But (of course, I'm generalising here) getting something substantial, as in big enough to threaten victory right in the opening or at least the early middlegame, is very much harder. If you want that, I think you need to play 1. e4 - but whilst the potential reward is higher, so is the risk, for sharper positions result and it can easily backfire.
As this game illustrates nicely, trying to win the slow and methodical way is more difficult than it needs to be with such a grading advantage when I lack the precision to avoid giving my small plus away several times in a game. Black's endgame play needed only to be a little better to rescue the half-point. It was many weeks ago that I resolved January 1st would mark the end of my little experiment; whilst I was determined not to bring the date forward, after this game I was certain that it couldn't come soon enough!
There is, again, a noteworthy psychological lesson to be drawn from this game: the power of imbalances. I remember reading some time ago, an article on the Streatham & Brixton blog, which articulated an Aagaard idea originally from Smyslov - moves like BxN, even if not objectively the best, can be perfect for the stronger side because they introduce imbalance - and thus scope to outplay the opponent. That is what black invited with 13... c5!? - it's the engine first choice, but practically maybe not the best way to continue. Once I had a clear idea of what to do in the position, and a conviction that his idea wasn't good (no matter that said conviction was misplaced) the game felt a lot easier to play.
My endgame play was definitely not the best, and even after going two pawns up I came alarmingly close to throwing it away in a time scramble. But in the end, yet another win to credit to determination to eke it out, not to mention an opponent collapsing under the tension. Still, if you thought this needed a bit of fortune to bring home, just wait for the third game!
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